Defense

Force of the Future Aims to Increase Military’s Geographic Diversity

The military attracts most of its recruits from the southeastern part of the country. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi are fertile recruiting grounds for the services. Georgia has the highest recruit-to-population ratio in the nation. Those six states, plus Idaho, Arizona, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska are overrepresented in the military when adjusting for differences in population.

Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah are underrepresented in the military. The states in the rest of the nation are within the parameters of their recruit-to-population ratio, officials said.

“It’s certainly important to reflect the nation we serve, to have a force that’s representative of all the states and all the various different populations across the country,” said Stephanie Miller, DoD’s director of accession policy. “We also need to ensure that from a recruiting perspective we are tapping into all the various populations throughout the United States. We would quickly run out of eligible recruits if we were concentrating on one area of the country.”